A couple of questions

[frenchkittie]

I'd like to pick your collective brains, if I may.

I'm very new to all this, and although I've picked up an enormous amount of information from reading this forum (thank you all) there are still some things that I'd like to understand better.

First off, eyesight. How long after diagnosis/starting insulin before fuzzy, hyperglycemia induced eyesight returns to normal? I've saw the eye specialist on the day I was diagnosed (just over 2 weeks ago) and he assured me that I had no long-term damage, and that the fuzziness would clear once my blood sugar was stabilised. Well it hasn't cleared yet, and is actually much worse. The diabetes nurse said it would take about a month to clear, does that tie in with your experience?

Secondly, when you all talk about your blood sugar levels on the forum, are you using mg/dl, or some other measure, as some of the time it isn't obvious to me?

Oh, I've just thought of another question... my diabetes nurse told me that the sugar levels I should be aiming for (in the immediate, short term) are 60 to 110 mg/dl first thing in the morning, and that 2 hours after eating they should be 50 mg/dl higher than before eating. That's great, but what range, roughly, should they be before eating at lunchtime/evening? I'd really like some guideline figures to see if my readings throughout the day are Ok or not.

At the moment I'm monitoring my sugars every 30 minutes between breakfast and lunch, as this is the trickiest period for me, but without knowing what "normal" is it's kind of difficult to interpret the results.

 

[cugila]

Hi Frenchkittie.

First of all regarding your eyesight it will get worse before it gets better. As your Nurse stated, give it some time and with better control of Bg numbers it will settle down.

As this is a UK site we always use mmol/l not mg/dl. The conversion from one to the other is divide OR multiply by 18 to get the right numbers. There is a converter on the site Community pages.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/blood-sugar-converter.html

The UK guideline figures for a Type 1 Diabetic are as follows:
Fasting (waking).............between 4 - 7 mmol/l. (pre meals)
2 hrs after meals............no more than 9 mmol/l.

If you are able to get the post meal readings lower so much the better. However always remember that anything below 4 mmol/l is considered hypoglycaemic. So best avoided unless you enjoy feeling cr*p ?

 

[frenchkittie]

Thanks cugila

 

[phoenix]

Eyes, I became very longsighted when I first went onto insulin, I couldn't focus on the television in the hospital room, but I could see for miles out of thel window, I don't remember it lasting that long, maybe a couple of weeks.

i've just got my notes out from a course I did, I've got so used to reading targets on the internet I thought I'd check what I was taught here (in France)
The notes emphasise that target should be invidually discussed with yout doctor but gives some 'general guidance'.

fasting (and before meals) 0.60g/l to 1,00g/l (3,3mmol to 5.5mmol)
hypoglycemie when < 60g/l
post prandial 1,20 to 1,50g/l (6.6mmol/l-8.3mmol)
rise after meals to be not more than .50g/l (2.7mmol)
It's quite important not to be too low at the 2 hour point because your rapid insulin is still quite powerful up to 3 hours and continues to work for up to 5 hours.

(edit: I also think that if you are at the low end before meals you have to go up more than 0.5g/l to get a reasonable post prandial level )

Technical confusion coming up!
There is a reason that the figures seem lower than those advised in the UK. I think they are based on home monitors, all of which in France gave (until very recently) what's called whole blood readings, these are 12% lower than lab figures and some modern meters.
since the figures seem to agree with what your nurse has said, I'm assuming your meter is whole blood calibrated (accuchek ones are) .......having said that my nurse didn't realise some were different and my new One Touch meter is plasma calibrated.... though you have to read the small print with the strips to realise that. If you have one of those you should be be above 0.70 g/l .(3.8mmol)

see http://www.diabetesmonitor.com/m37.htm for better explanation.

 

[sunflower333]

Hi Frenchkittie

I was diagnosed with type 1 in July, so fairly new also, first time i've wrote on here, but visited lots of times, and its a very helpful site.

I also live in France, but I'm English. Been through the same thing as you. Gone to hospital on the drip ect, but more importantly I also lost my eye sight very badly, can't even see my family's faces, just stars were the eyes where.

I found this very upsetting, more so than the diabetes at the time.

The good news is, it came back after about two weeks so try not to worry.
I'm also on Novo and Lanctus, so where in the same boat,

I was told for your levels, 80-120 (4.4 - 6.6 mmol/l) before meals and no higher than
180 ( 10 mmol/l) after meals.

I hope this helps, good luck, speak soon.

 

[frenchkittie]

Thanks phoenix, and you are right, I was given an accu chek at the hospital, and another one on prescription (marked non-substitutable, which I think proves your point).

And hello and thank you to sunflower as well. Nice to hear that you both agree that the woeful eyesight is a very short-term problem, that's cheered me up enormously

Isn't this forum great!

 

[phoenix]

Isn't this forum great!

You can find good and poor advice on all forums. I know I'm very grateful to many anonymous people on the internet, those who taught me how to use insulin and those who helped me retain access to healthcare. Thankyou.
:wink:
Hi Sunflower,
Welcome,
That makes at least 4 of us, possibly more.
Perhaps we need a subforum :lol:

 

[sunflower333]

thankyou for the kind welcome